February with Jackie Watkins

Jackie Watkins, from Ridgeland, wowed us with her Trunk Full of Challenges at our February 14 meeting. Jackie makes quilts of all sizes, from huge (see this one) to miniature challenge pieces depicting a theme (a color and a noun). The variety of themes are a good starting point for trying a multitude of techniques and ideas and have led Jackie to experiment with methods she might never have tried. She showed several examples of Interleave Quilts and will teach a workshop on this technique March 1. Preregistration is required.

Jackie’s Katrina quilt

An Interleave Quilt

UFO Challenge: Sixteen members turned in their list to participate in this year’s challenge. UFO #1 on the list will be due at the March meeting, and UFO #4 due at the April meeting. A number will be drawn in April for the UFO to be due in June. The schedule of later drawings and when the UFOs will be due is like this:

February-Draw #1

March–#1 due

February-Draw # 4

April–#4 due

April–Draw #

June–due

June–Draw #

August–due

August–Draw #

October–due

October–Draw #

December–due

Charitable Activities: Today we received these items from our generous members: 54 pillows, 9 preemie blankets, 10 mother pads, 109 walker totes, 6 catheter bag covers. We had several children’s quilt kits ready to take home; members who want to help with Children’s Quilts and cannot attend the CQ workdays enjoy taking these kits prepared by Bonnie Bolt. Betty Bingham also reminded us of our extensive guild library. She commented on Jodi Barrows’ third book and is ordering it for our library. These are well researched books based on Jodi’s family’s love of quilts. Jodi has been a vendor and speaker at our last three shows but will not be able to be at our 2018 show because of her celebration of her 40th anniversary with a cruise. We will look forward to having her back in 2020.

Quilt Show: Martha Ginn announced that Betty Reid has agreed to be co-chair for our 2018 show, and that Categories had been decided (posted on the website under Quilt Show tab). Information Page and Entry Form will be available soon. The raffle quilt is still in progress, but the top was ready for us to see. Thanks to Anne Hindmarch, Dianne McLendon, Susie Jackson, and Linda Flanders for hours of hard work to get it to this point. Susie is machine embroidering borders that will be added. We asked for suggestions for the name and heard many words like Mississippi, kaleidoscope, diamonds, spring, gems, with the result being “Mississippi Kaleidoscope.”

Beginnings of raffle quilt, Mississippi Kaleidoscope

We can order tickets and begin selling these. Members were also asked to ask their friends and business owners to help us by placing ads in the show catalog. We need everyone to help with fund raising, not just to put on the show, but to make it possible for us to bring in excellent teachers for our programs.

March meeting and workshop: We will have Mary Lou Weidman from Spokane Valley, WA, as our guest speaker in March. She is well-known for her whimsical Self-Portraits. Here are a couple of pieces she sent to whet our appetite for the class.